Whole Wheat Naan

If you're looking for a healthier version of Naan then try this version made with whole wheat flour!  Same concept as the "Naan in less than an House" but with whole wheat flour and yogurt.  Give it a try!

Whole Wheat Naan in Less Than an Hour

Fullbellies Naan

1 cup of whole wheat flour
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
4 tbsp yogurt
2 tbsp water

In a large bowl, mix dry ingredients together. Add 4 tbsp yogurt and 2 tbsp water if needed.

Knead in the bowl until smooth and cover for 30 minutes.

Preheat the heavy skillet or griddle on medium high heat. Divide your dough in two and roll into balls.

Roll on a lightly floured surface to approximately 1/4" thick. Dust off any excess flour and place on the hot skillet.  

Brush the top side with butter and toss onto the hot griddle.  Brush the now top side with butter.

When bubbles begin to form (10 to 20 seconds), flip it and brush the 2nd side. Leave it on for about a minute and take it off the heat. Enjoy!

For a yummy dessert dip the naan in greek yogurt and honey! Delicious!

Abs Diet- Chicken Soup for the Bowl

After being bored with salads and not able to find another 8 serving meal, I decided to go with chicken soup for lunch.  This chicken soup is packed with celery, carrots and brown rice.  The only thing missing is flax seed!  This soup is good, but make sure you taste it for salt, pepper and spice.  This soup does well with a little zip to it!

It heats well in the microwave and it's nice to just make one thing and then be done with it!

Chicken Soup for the Bowl

Adapted from Men's Health

2 tsp olive oil

3 chicken breasts chopped

4 stalks of celery, diced

2 carrots, diced

1 onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, crushed

Salt and Pepper

2/3 cup brown rice

1 box of low sodium chicken broth or stock

Heat the oil in a large pot over medium low heat.  Add the celery, carrots and onion and cook until nice and soft (about ten or so minutes).  Turn up the heat to medium high and cook the chicken (about ten minutes) add the rice and then add the broth and seasoning and bring to a boil.  Lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes.  Divide into 6 servings and done!

Individual Serving

6 Servings!

Abs Diet "Don't Tell Mom It's Not Meatloaf"

I wanted to further simplify my lunch and dinner repertoire so I went with this hefty Abs Diet Meatloaf recipe.  It has 8 servings so I figured that would be perfect for lunch and dinner this week! One day of cooking and then that's it! I wanted to mix it up a little bit, so I made a loaf of bread to have meatloaf sandwiches for lunch.

This meatloaf is pretty tasty and I made some modifications to it.  I had a red pepper in the fridge so I added that. I skipped the cilantro and I used a can of diced tomatoes instead of fresh, because I wasn't sure what the recipe wanted.  I think next time I'll add some wheat germ as a binding agent too, unless I get sick of this after eating it all week and never want to eat it again (that's what happened with the salads).

So, give it a try, let me know what you think and enjoy eating healthier meatloaf!

Turkey Meatloaf
Adapted from Men's Health

1 onion diced
1 red pepper diced
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 1/2 pounds lean ground turkey
2 eggs
2 cloves of garlic minced
2 teaspoons of cumin
1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes, drained
Salt and Pepper
1 cup marinara sauce

Preheat the oven to 350F.  Coat two 9x5 inch pans with cooking spray.

Heat a large non-stick skillet over medium high heat and add the olive oil.  Cook the onions and pepper until soft (I did mine for about 30 minutes, but 10 would be ok).  Let cool.  Meanwhile, put the turkey, eggs, garlic, cumin, tomatoes and salt and pepper in a bowl.  Add the onion and peppers and combine.  Dive between the two pans.

Spread the sauce on top (1/2 cup on each pan) and bake for 45 minutes or until cooked through.  For sandwiches serve with this delicious blitz bread!

As leftovers try not to microwave the loaf.  It's ok, if you're at work and have no other option, but really what you need to do is sear it in a pan so that a bottom crust develops.  This bottom crust helps to seal in all of the delicious flavor and takes a bland meatloaf into something so delicious.  Just trust me, you'll want to sear it.  Say "NO" to the microwave!

Tasty!

Hey, sandwich, looking fine!

Extreme Close-Up!

Blitz Bread- for Meatloaf Sandwiches or anything!

Lunch and dinner for this week is meatloaf! I thought it would be good to break up the monotony by having lunch as meatloaf sandwiches. What would be the best bread to go with such a hearty dish? Why this quick and easy bread from King Arthur flour! I chose this bread because it was made to go with their recipe for meatloaf. Perfect!

This bread came out decently and I would make some changes next time. The main change I would make it to not put olive oil in the pan, but rather to just spray the pan with cooking spray. The dough is very sticky and it also stuck to the bottom of my pan once it finished baking! It was not fun. The other change would be to pay attention to the bread more during rising. I think my loaf rose for 45 minutes before it overproofed and collapsed. It tastes just fine and I did make this as a whole wheat version, just because. Give it a try though! This bread is super easy!

Blitz Bread

• From King Arthur
• 1 1/2 cups warm water (110°F to 120°F)
• 3 tablespoons olive oil (plus additional for drizzling)
• 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
• 3 1/2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour*
• 1 tablespoon instant yeast
• *Substitute 1 1/2 cups King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour or Premium Whole Wheat Flour for 1 1/2 cups of the all-purpose flour, if desired.

To make the bread: Lightly grease a 9" x 13" pan, and spray with cooking spray all around.
Combine all of the bread ingredients, and beat at high speed with an electric mixer for 60 seconds.  Scoop the sticky batter into the prepared pan, cover the pan, and let it rise at room temperature for about 90 minutes, until it becomes puffy. While the dough is rising, preheat the oven to 375°F.  

Bake the bread until it's golden brown, about 35 minutes. Remove it from the oven, wait 5 minutes, then turn it out of the pan onto a rack to cool.

Uh oh! Bread Dough EXPLODED! (for the record, I just keep my loaves in the microwave to rise.)

Sliced Up

Whole Loaf

Abs Diet Salmon Rushdie- Taco Form

It was time to dig into the giant bag of salmon I bought and do something with it!  I went with the Salmon Rushdie in the book and naturally made a few changes.  This is a good easy meal and you can do a lot with it.  It's tasty too, but can salmon really be gross? Hopefully not!

Salmon Rushdie

Adapted from Abs Diet

1 Salmon Filet (about 3 oz)

Juice of 1/2 lemon

1 tsp olive oil

Salt and Pepper

1/2 an avocado (or your green vegetable of choice)

Serving of Brown Rice or a La Tortilla Factory Healthy Tortilla

Preheat over to 450F

Mix the lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper in a bowl.  Put the salmon in the bowl and cover with the lemon juice mixture.  Allow that to hang out while the oven preheats.

Once the oven is preheated put the fish on a baking sheet sprayed with Pam and bake for 9-12 minutes or until the fish is done.

Meanwhile, prepare your green vegetable of choice or slice your avocado. 

If using a tortilla throw it in the oven during the last 2 minutes of cooking.  Take the salmon out, flake and assemble like a taco and enjoy.  If going the original recipe, then serve with green vegetable and brown rice.

Not a great picture, but it's not all that exciting anyway

Abs Diet BBQ King

Another tasty and delicious Abs Diet meal is this BBQ King dish featuring kielbasa, beans, baked beans and tomato.  This is surprisingly delicious meal and you can change some of the variables in it to customize it.  The original recipe calls for navy beans (which I can never find) so I use whatever beans I have around and in this case it was Pinto. I also didn't use kielbasa but instead used some Johnsonville Andouille sausages (3) and I did not include the mushrooms.  I also think the can of baked beans I have is smaller than what is called for in the recipe.   This is my spin on it, let me know what you think!

BBQ King

Adapted from Abs Diet

3 Andouille Sausages chopped

1/2 small diced onion

1 clove garlic minced

1 can baked beans

1 can pinto beans drained and rinsed

1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes

1/4 cup Panko bread crumbs

1 tablespoon ground flaxseed

1 tablespoon olive oil

Salt and Pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 350F

Heat a large pan over medium heat and add the onion and sausage.  Cook together until the onions are softened (about 5 or so minutes).  Add the beans tomatoes and garlic and cook for another 5 or so minutes.  Turn off the heat

Combine the flaxseed, bread crumbs and olive oil in a small bowl.  Sprinkle the mixture over the beans and sausage and throw in the oven for 20 minutes until the mixture starts to bubble.  OR, throw it in a 400F oven for 5 minutes. Let cool and enjoy. I topped mine with a dollop of fat free greek yogurt for added protein.

Extreme Close up!

Zoom Out!

Abs Diet Chocolate Chip Pancakes

I wanted pancakes on Sunday morning and I wanted them healthy. I turned to the Abs Diet and cooked up a batch of these lovelies.  These pancakes and surprisingly light and fluffy with great taste! Give them a try!

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup coconut flour

1/2 cup Hi- Maize Fiber  (from king arthur.com)

1 tbsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups milk (recipe calls for 2% I used buttermilk)

1 tbsp brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs lightly beaten

1/2 cup chocolate chips

Mix the flour, baking powder, salt, coconut flour and hi fiber in a large bowl.  Stir in the eggs, milk, sugar and vanilla until the batter comes together.  Stir in the chocolate chips.

Coat a griddle or skillet with non stick spray and heat over medium-high heat.  Using a measuring cup, pour 1/4 cup batter on the griddle.  Flip once the edges start to bubble and are cooked.  Flip, cook and eat.

Look at them all lined up!

Abs Diet Sloppy Joes

These Sloppy Joes have become an absolute house favorite.  Who doesn't like Sloppy Joes? Slightly sweet and spicy sauce, messy, tasty and delicious.  I feel like I should make a haiku out of it!

These Sloppy Joes are also healthy because they're made with ground turkey and homemade sauce.  This is super easy to put together and is ready in less than 20 minutes! Serve over homemade buns, and it's a real treat!

Sloppy Joes

Adapted from Abs Diet

1 pound of ground turkey

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1 cup ketchup

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup worcestershire sauce

2 tbsp yellow mustard

1/2 tbsp chili powder

Pepper to taste

Buns

Brown the turkey until it's just about cooked through.  Drain the fat if desired.  Sprinkle the garlic and chili powder and allow to cook together for about a minute or two or until the turkey is cooked through.  Add the ketchup, apple cider vinegar, worcestershire and mustard, stir together and allow to cook through until a delicious sauce is formed.  Add pepper if desired and serve over buns.

They look pretty good! Sort of like a Sloppy Joe Clamshell!

Sweet Potato Fries

Sweet Potato Fries are a popular side dish in my house. I bake them and after a lot of trial and error discovered the secret to tasty sweet potato fries.  I found this out from Instructables.com.  The key "secret" that I learned was to make sure the sweet potatoes do not touch each other.  That's it!  Before I just dumped them on the pan and threw them in the oven.  They took forever to finish cooking and were always soggy.  After carefully placing them on the pan so they don't touch, they cooked faster and were not as soggy.  I'm still working on it, but these are pretty good.  Add a hefty dose of Old Bay and you get Cajun Fries!   Yum!

Sweet Potato Fries

Adapted from Instructables.com

1 sweet potato cut into fries

2 tbsp Old Bay

1 tbsp olive oil

Preheat oven to 450

Put the sweet potatoes in a bowl and drizzle with olive oil and Old Bay.  Mix together so that all of the fries have oil and Old Bay.  Carefully arrange on a sheet pan sprayed with Pam.  Bake for about 15 or minutes or until tender and turn once 1/2 way through cooking.  Enjoy!

Not the best picture

Baked Mozzarella Sticks

I've seen the baked mozzarella sticks on pinterest as a huge fail.  I'm happy to report that I made them and they were not a huge fail! I actually did nail it!

The key to baked mozzarella sticks is to make sure your sticks are thoroughly frozen.  I had mine frozen overnight, plus all the next day and they were sufficiently frozen.  These were also pretty easy to make and I must say, I pretty much made up this version.  Easy squeasy and ready quickly (after they're frozen)

Baked Mozzarella Sticks
4 mozzarella sticks cut in half.  Freeze overnight
1 tbsp flour
1 egg beaten
1/4 cup bread crumbs
2 tbsp parmesan
2 tbsp your favorite spice blend.  I used Emeril's Bayou Blast (homemade though!)

Preheat oven to 425F
Put the flour in one bowl.  Put the egg in another bowl.  Put the bread crumbs, parmesan and spices in another bowl and combine.  Dip one frozen stick in the flour, the egg and then the bread crumbs and place on a baking sheet.  Repeat with the remaining sticks.  Spray with Pam.  Bake for 5 minutes.  Turn carefully and bake for another 5 minutes, watching very carefully to make sure the cheese doesn't melt everywhere.

These are pretty good and could be very addicting.  PORTION CONTROL is key term here!

Terrible picture, but you get the idea!